The following is edited from Ben Macintyre, published in the Times Online earlier this month. It is an interesting view.
"The information we consume online comes ever faster, punchier and more fleetingly. Our attention rests only briefly on the internet page before moving incontinently onto the next electronic canapé.
Addicted to the BlackBerry, hectored and heckled by the next blog alert, web link or text message, we are in state of Continual Partial Attention, too bombarded by snippets and gobbets of information to focus on anything for very long....
The internet has evolved a new species of magpie reader, gathering bright little buttons of knowledge, before hopping onto the next shiny thing.